AUCian’s Documentary Revisits Cairo’s Ballet Splendor

By: Youssef Shebria

@YShebria

Amir El-Shenawy, AUC alumnus, director and producer, was given two cash awards at the third annual Gouna Film Festival (GFF) after pitching his idea for The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, a documentary still in development.

Produced by El-Shenawy and directed by Mohamed Taher, the documentary tells the story of five Egyptian ballerinas who performed a famous Russian ballet The Fountain of Bakhchisarai at the opening of the Cairo Ballet Company in front of former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1966.

The dance was recorded and stored in the archives of the Egyptian Radio and Television in Maspero.

El-Shenawy wants to bring the original ballet troupe together in order to perform part of the dance…53 years after the first performance, and capture it in his documentary.

In a bid to support his documentary, local production company Synergy Films awarded El-Shenawy a $10,000 prize at the CineGouna platform in late September.

Additionally, the U.S. Embassy and Film Independent, a non-profit organization that supports filmmakers, gifted El-Shenawy $15,000 and an invitation to attend their forum to discuss his documentary with  different industry professionals.

“I was so happy after winning the awards at CineGouna Springboard. Especially since this is my first time as a producer and I’m sure the two awards will help us [the documentary’s crew] push the documentary forward and enable us to start the production stage soon,” El-Shenawy said.

CineGouna Springboard is a project development and co-production lab held at GFF which provides opportunities to Arab filmmakers, directors and producers by giving them creative and financial support with their projects that are in development or post-production.

Along with, El-Shenawy’s friend and director of the documentary, El-Shenawy expressed his feelings while pitching the idea.

“Presenting the project and pitching it in CineGouna was a bit overwhelming for us,” El-Shenawy said of collaborator and the documentary’s director Mohamed Taher.

“Thank God it went well and we got positive feedback,” El-Shenawy added.

El-Shenaway graduated from AUC in 2013 after studying Communication and Media Arts and double minoring in Film and Arab and Islamic Civilizations. He then completed his master’s in Screen Documentary at Goldsmiths University in London in 2017.

Professor of Practice at the Journalism and Mass Communication Department, and participant at the educational workshops at CineGouna, Mervat Abou Oaf said El-Shenaway’s passion for film-making shines through.

“For him, the film industry is not something that he is working in, it’s something that he is breathing. He really identifies with what he does and I think he is doing a great job,” Abou Oaf said.

Having witnessed his career progression, both as a student and a film producer, Abou Oaf has a special connection with El-Shenawy.

“He [El-Shenawy] is more than a student, he is a friend. He’s somebody that I look up to. He is really a very vivid example of how when you persist and insist, you get [to be] whatever you want to be,” Abou Ouf added.

El-Shenawy directed Kilo 64, his first professional documentary, which was first screened in the 40th Cairo International Film Festival in 2018, an annual festival held in Cairo which dates back to 1976.

The documentary discusses the story of Wael, his brother and a pharmacy graduate, who shifted his career upon graduating and decided to start a farming business along the highway linking Cairo to Alexandria.

The documentary was screened at the 9th Malmo Arab Film Festival, in 2019, which is considered to be one of the prominent film festivals for Arab cinema held in Sweden.

Youssef Othman, AUC alumnus, actor and El-Shenawy’s friend who also participated at this year’s GFF said that El-Shenawy is meticulous about the minutiae of film-making.

“As a filmmaker, he watches a lot of movies and studies a lot. He is really a filmmaker who wants to do cinema and tell real stories. He really cares about the actors, the camera [visuals] and cares about the small details,” Othman said.

El-Shenawy will get his chance to tell the story of The Fountain of Bakhchisarai when he resumes shooting again in a few weeks.

“We are currently in the late development phase of the project. Eventually, soon, we will be in the pre-early production and we might start shooting at the end of this year,” he said.